K-Pop: A Completely Objective Analysis

For want of extracurricular engagment (having failed to make the Dragon-boat team on account of missing try-outs), I joined up with the "i-Ambassadors," a large group of students charged with organizing and participating in various cultural activities on campus. Though it feels weird, I am a "diverse" entity here and thus feel compelled to arrange some sort of event centering on American culture, whatever that might be. As usual this stems from not from any real solidarity with my country as it is (full of people who listen to Glenn Beck), but the idealistic, abstract notion of the U.S. as the greatest country in the world period. Or at least the greatest English-speaking country; For some reason China has not gotten the memo that Great Britain ceded this title to us a century ago. Besides losing its geopolitical badassery to us, the U.K.'s best cultural contributions have been appropriated by its other former possesions: New Zealand took all their Hobbits, Australia their acting chops, and aside from Dr. Who (which I only watch for the Daleks), Canada their Science Fiction. Yet the Chinese government insists on teaching British English and - as President Xi did last week - basking in its royally (hah) excessive diplomatic pomp and circumstance. I'll give Hong Kongers a pass for nostalgia's sake, since they were, in fact, colonized by the Brits up until about 20 years ago, but Mainland China should reconsider where it imports its Au Pairs from.  

However, the English-language thing is more a matter of practicality rather than genuince cultural interest. Chinese youth tend to look closer to home for their source of international culture, or at least that of the "popular" variety. As was evidenced by the large turnout at a recent Korean-themed festival on campus, which the "i-Ambassadors" were drafted to helped organize, K-pop is pretty in this part of the world. For the uninitiated, K-pop can be generally understood as any band of 3.5 conventionally-atractive Korean girls with light complexion, assembled by a committee of their primary demographic: 17 to 20-something Chinese males. But we are initiated, aren't we Bruce? Most of those "in-touch" in the West are familar with this phenomenon through the artist Psy, who ironically does not represent the ideal type, but his videos certainly do. 

But for the youth in this country, K-pop (and South Korea in general) represents a feminine ideal akin to our own Taylor Swift. The group above may not be the best example (they were instrumentalists, not singers, and pretty good to boot), but most groups possess the right kind of physical beauty, wear a just-immodest-enough wardrobe, and offer the barest minimum of musical skill to be instantly marketable without being too transformative and disruptive within the present socio-cultural equilibrium. That, and they aren't Japanese.